Ghost Legion
This is a very gritty depiction of the events leading up to the battle of King’s Mountain in 1780. The author, a Spur award winner, follows the story of two characters on opposite sides of the conflict as they converge on the site of the battle. Stuart Brodie, a free man of color, falls in with Major Patrick Ferguson after finding his younger brother hanged as a Tory. Marty McKidrict is an abused wife of a backcountry lowlife who takes her Deckard rifle, with which she is an excellent shot, and joins a muster under the leadership of John Sevier. The chaotic and bloodthirsty nature of the fighting is accurately portrayed, and the agonizing pitting of families and neighbors against each other is also plainly evident. Mr. Boggs cites his historical sources at the end of the book and gives some interesting detail as to the real personae who make their appearance. The Ghost Legion was a joke to the Major “Bulldog” Ferguson, who underestimated the numbers, the abilities and the ferocity of the American settlers whom he provoked at the cost of his life and the loss of the battle. It was essentially, the same mistake on the part of the British military forces that would later lead to Yorktown.
